Desperately Seeking Mailman

Monday was my first day working as an extra in Hollywood. I was excited to get started working and on top of that, I would be earning my first union voucher as an actor. I only need three to be eligible for SAG so I was anxious to get started.

We had to be on set ready to shoot at 6am. Which meant that because I had to park, take a van to the set and then change into my mailman uniform, I had to be there around 5:30 am. I was worried about sleeping in so I set two alarms and went to be early. I woke up about 3 times during the night and looked at my clock, sure that I had missed my alarm somehow. I got up and took a shower and left my apartment around 4:30, just to be safe. There was zero traffic and I got to Universal Studios at 4:45. So I had some time to kill. I just pulled into a residential street and had some breakfast, a balance bar and some water. I listened to morning talk radio for the first time here, and it is as bad as Chicago.

Long story long, I get to the parking garage and walk outside to wait for the shuttle van to take me to the set. There are a couple people also there and I asked a young lady if this was where the shuttle van came to take us to the set of “Desperate Housewives”. She said yes, and then turned to me and said,

“This is ridiculous, it takes an extra half an hour to get to the job because you have to take a stupid van and you have no control over it, and you might be late and it is all bullshit”.

I guess I must have given her a look because she then apologized and told me that she was not a morning person. I told her that was okay and slowly inched my way away from her in case she snapped.

The van came and took us to the wardrobe area. We drove through the backlot of Universal Studios, right where the tour goes. The set was close to the “Jaws” exhibit, so I thought it was kind of cool that I was going to be working here.

I got the wardrobe location and went to get my uniform. The woman who was having a bad morning was the wardrobe person. So I smiled at her, and thanked her for giving me the uniform and she told me to change in the “honey wagon”. So I did, and that was when I discovered I didn’t bring anything to put the clothes I was wearing into while I was shooting. I had my leather shoulder bag packed with stuff for the day, so I just crammed everything in there including my shoes and came out looking like a mailman.

I was then directed to craft services to go get breakfast. I grabbed a cup of coffee and then I was taken to the set. The set was on a street called “Colonial Street”. It had about a dozen or so houses on it and there were about 50 people getting the set ready to shoot. They had people raking the lawns, they had people securing the rose bushes together so they looked really good, people moving cars, and the regular crew of lighting, camera, and prop people all running around getting ready to shoot.

An Assistant Director named M came over to me and took me to the side of the mail truck they had parked on the side of the street. I was given a mailbag with lots of mail in it and a mace container that clipped to my belt from the prop department. Then my friend A came over to introduce herself. She is the one who is helping me get my SAG card. I actually remembered her from working on Early Edition in Chicago about 6 years ago. She said hello and asked if everything was going okay. I said yes and thanked her for helping me. She then disappeared into the crowd of crew people.

The first shot was of one of the characters driving up to his house, getting out of his car, getting his mail and then going inside the house. I was told to walk to three different mailboxes and then continue down the street. We did that about 5 times and then I was told to relax for a little bit. It was around 7:30 am. I didn’t get into another shot all day.

I didn’t mind. I was watching people work, reading and generally taking it easy. All the while I was making good money.

The coolest part was that when we broke for lunch, we were walking to the craft area and a tram full of people on the Universal tour drove by and the guide said,

“Here is the set of “Desperate Housewives” and new series starting this fall”.

Everyone on the tour was looking at us and I have to say that I felt pretty cool. Lunch was really good and I noticed that the two cast people that were working at that time didn’t eat with the crew. The grabbed their food and headed off someplace else. I did get to walk by one of the woman on the show, I don’t know her name, but she was STUNNING. I knew I got into acting for a reason.

The rest of the day went by pretty quickly. I was not asked to be in another shot, but I just sat around and listened to people talk and watched them shoot.

At the end of the day, I was taken to a new wardrobe area, by Stage 5. On the way there we passed the “Meet the Fockers” set. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of someone but no such luck. The wardrobe trailer was there and the guy there told me that the honey wagon was on it’s way. Or I could change in the bathroom around the corner. I didn’t want to look like I wanted more money, so I went to the bathroom to change. I met a janitor coming out and he told me to be careful because he had just moped. So I went into the tiny stall and started to undress. The I noticed that the floor was all wet and my shoes were getting it all dirty. There was only one hook and if I put the clothes on the floor they would have become dirty and wet. I didn’t want to turn in my mailman uniform dirty and wet because I am sure that it would piss those people off, so I balanced on one leg and removed my shoe and sock and one pant leg. Then holding on to the top of the stall, I put my bare foot on one of my shoes and balanced on it to take my other shoe, sock and pant leg off. Then the stall door popped open. The latched was crappy and because I was shaking the stall holding on to it, the door wouldn’t stay shut. So now I have no pants on, with two pairs of shoes on the ground, leaning on the stall door and holding on to the top of the stall to keep my balance as I threw my uniform over the stall divider and tried to change into my regular clothes. I prayed that no one would come in because I probably would have been asked to leave and register as a sex offender.

I get changed and walk back to the wardrobe area. I give my uniform to the same woman I first met that morning, and she was very impressed at how neat my uniform was and that I had given it to her in exactly the same way that I had been given it this morning. She said most people just throw it all into a bag and then they have to sort it out. So I felt good about leaving a good last impression, that is unless they have cameras in the bathrooms.

My friend A came up and said good-bye, I thanked her again. She told me that they would have me back as the mailman soon. I left having worked about 13 hours, made a decent amount of money, and feeling like I made the right decision to move out here.